


The Alphabet Killer

by My_Alter_Ego



Category: White Collar
Genre: Coincidences, Daddy Issues, Deadly Psychosis, Gen, Mention of Previous Child Abuse, Mentions of Violence, Psychic Vibes, Suspicion, head games, murders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 14:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22712263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Alter_Ego/pseuds/My_Alter_Ego
Summary: A vicious serial killer is using a rather unique approach to his technique of murdering individuals who work in law enforcement. When he eventually sets his sights on Neal, it becomes very dangerous for everybody involved in the con artist’s world. This is a dark psychological thriller that is really a story of an obsessed, deeply disturbed mind.
Relationships: Neal Caffrey & Serial Killer, Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Comments: 32
Kudos: 68





	1. The Genesis of Evil

**Author's Note:**

> I am trying out a new format with this story. One of my readers noted that I always write stories using the third person. She stated that really fascinating novels are written in the first person, so I gave it a whirl. Thus, instead of readers being voyeurs looking in through a window at the characters, this fiction is told from the killer’s viewpoint. The first chapter is all about the him, enabling us to understand how he evolved. We see what he sees and hear his thoughts. The following two posts that complete the story are eerie as he zeroes in on Neal.

When I awake before the dawn, it is with a familiar juvenile refrain twanging across my brain cells— _A, B, C, D, E, F, G,_ and so on and so on. Sometimes, the morning earworm is another childhood ditty— _The Farmer in the Dell, The Wheels on the Bus,_ or _The Itsy-Bitsy Spider_. But the _Alphabet_ one is the most frequent fragment left over after the nightmares, and it has eclipsed the others and become my special theme song. Believe me when I say that I have tried to obliterate it. I’ve listened to other musical genres as substitutes during my waking hours, but they do nothing to stop the itch, and I’m stuck in the never-ending cycle that began in childhood.

In my dreams, I’m maybe four or five, definitely not yet old enough for first grade in my small rural town in Iowa. I attend the local church pre-school, which is really just another word for a babysitting service. We sing songs, play with blocks, and take afternoon naps on little foam mats. We drink from miniature cardboard boxes of apple juice and draw pictures with fat colorful crayons. When the day is over, little tots go home to Mommies who fuss over those juvenile works of art and put them up on refrigerators in normal homes. Unfortunately, I don’t have a mother who will extol my creativity. Of course, there once was a woman who bore me, but it was never made clear to me why she was missing like a puzzle piece from a bigger picture. There was always just a void where a mother should have been, but I never thought to question it. It was just the way things were in my world. There were other more disturbing worldly things surrounding me like a dense fog, but when I was little, I didn’t have the words to describe them or even perceive them as being out of the ordinary. Again, I’ll use the lame excuse of, “It was just the way things were.”

Let me now explain that bizarre atmosphere which enveloped the young impressionable years of my existence. My father was the local police chief who kept a population of about 800 souls safe from things that go bump in the night. However, I wasn’t someone that he protected from evil. What went bump in the night in our house was the iron headboard in his bedroom as he pushed into me over and over. I had long since ceased to cry over this desecration. I got through the horrendous act by singing the alphabet song in my head.

It took years for me to come to grips with this travesty that I kept to myself like a malignant infection festering below the surface. I certainly knew it was somehow wrong, but who could I go to when my own father was the highest authority in the land? Who would believe me? I suffered in silence as the years passed. When I became sexually mature, sometimes I was mortified when my body would respond, and I began to fear that this ongoing abuse was turning me into a homosexual. Although I didn’t seem to have any overt yearnings for members of the same gender, you never knew what had been buried deep down inside just waiting to crawl out of the woodwork.

So, I was determined to hide behind an extremely macho façade as a teenager, buffing up my body in the gym and seeking out the toughest sports in high school. I excelled at wrestling and was bulked up enough to earn a defensive fullback position on the football team. Unfortunately, I wasn’t good enough to earn an athletic scholarship to get me out of this little hole in the wall Midwestern town, nor was I smart enough either. What I became was a parody of a hamster on a wheel, a determined crazed critter running and running but getting nowhere. I drifted through a few dead-end jobs after high school that didn’t pay enough for me to move out of my father’s house. However, even though I wasn’t intellectually brilliant, I was far from stupid. What I was in those days could be described as desperate. I needed to find a way to be free.

Being the son of the police chief had it perks. You could learn about all kinds of crimes and how the perps manage to commit them. I became a dedicated fan of forensic dramas on television and took notes on the anthology of the investigations by the authorities. I also kept abreast of all the latest gadgets and tools available to the experts as I began to plan the perfect crime. The quarry, of course, would be my father. I was his first victim, and now he would become mine.

It hadn’t really been all that hard. My father liked his liquor, so it was easy enough in those long-ago days to lace it with a few Quaaludes purchased from the local dealer a few towns over from ours. When my old man was snoring with his head resting on the kitchen table, I turned on the stove’s gas burner and watched in fascination as it ignited a precisely positioned dishtowel. In a few seconds, the flames reached the curtains hanging down from a nearby window and we were off to the races. I quickly left that wooden frame house on an isolated dead-end street and took refuge in a detached garage on the property. I busied myself tinkering with the car engine of a Chevy junker that had become my little hobby. There were no windows in my isolated hideaway, so that would be my excuse to the responding fire company personnel when they sought to extinguish an out-of-control blaze. I claimed I had been wearing my headphones so I hadn’t seen or heard a thing until the strident wail of the emergency sirens pulled me from my safe haven.

My father’s corpse was practically incinerated, so there was no way the local coroner, an old gent quite past his prime, could detect the sedative in his system. The exploded Jim Beam bottles were enough for the new acting chief-of-police to conclude that this was a tragic accident. I waited an appropriate time before collecting the insurance money and moving away from the place where my metamorphosis into a killer had its genesis.

My new future unfolded slowly during the years of a vagabond existence. I would awake each morning and set my sights on the sun as it rose on the horizon. I would feel and act almost normal, but eventually the disturbing wanderlust would set in. Something akin to a strong magnet was drawing me toward that fiery orb in the sky, so I let myself drift along like an eagle riding the air thermals. Maybe, in this grand scheme that we call life, some distant place in the beckoning east would be where it would all get sorted out and I could find a sense of closure. One way or the other, I was determined to reach my destiny.

There were other murders that took place during my vague pilgrimage, and they were all quite selective in nature. I would always seek out a person in authority—specifically a cop or a detective in the little cities and towns that I visited. They would die by my hand in a very orderly fashion, courtesy of a tattered old paperback I had found discarded on a bench in a train station. I don’t think I can even remember the name of that bumfuck little town on the map—maybe someplace in Illinois or Ohio.

The discarded coffee-stained book that was probably gotten in a thrift store was called _“The A. B. C. Murders.”_ It wasn’t a contemporary mystery, by any stretch of the imagination. It was penned long ago by Agatha Christie as a venue in which her Belgian super sleuth, Hercule Poirot, could showcase his amazing deductive skills. He was challenged to catch a serial killer who left arcane clues suggesting who his next victim would be and where they would be killed. The deaths corresponded to the alphabet—there was Alice Ascher, killed in her tobacco shop in Andover, Betty Barnard on a beach in Bexhill, and Sir Carmichael Clarke in his home in Churston. I thought that was quite clever, but I didn’t want to be relegated to the realm of a copycat killer. Instead of a name or a vicinity, the _manner_ of my victims’ deaths would follow an alphabetical sequence. That worked out quite nicely since the first murderous crime had been arson.

 _“B”_ is for bludgeoning, and that is exactly how a patrolman perished in a backwater borough in Kentucky. My second victim looked young and callow enough to be a new hire relegated to walking along what the locals euphemistically called “Main Street” during the dark hours of the night. His only responsibility was checking store windows and doors to make sure they were secure. It had been so easy to lure him into an adjacent alley and beat his head in with a tire iron. After I was finished, even his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him.

My demons quieted for almost a decade, and there wasn’t the driving bloodlust to kill a father substitute. I actually led a pretty decent life for a while in Memphis, Tennessee. I knew my way around engines and got a really sweet gig as an auto mechanic. The pay was good, so I now had a roof over my head, food on the table, and a shiny Dodge Ram pickup truck in my driveway. I even filled my downtime with a new passion. I bought a secondhand acoustic guitar and taught myself to play. Eventually, I became part of a little band of like-minded enthusiasts who had occasional jam sessions on weekends. It should have been a happy ending to my story, but, of course, there is always a worm in the apple.

It seemed to be wicked Fate that drew me back into killing mode. A State Smokey had pulled me over on a long stretch of deserted highway because of a broken taillight. The cop had climbed from his vehicle, arrogantly placed his Stetson on his head, and swaggered over to my window as big as you please. He didn’t look so smug and menacing when I flung open the door of the high-riding truck and knocked him flat on his ass. While he was down for the count, I backed up my vehicle and rode over his prone body, repeating the maneuver again and again until he looked like roadkill on the asphalt. _“C”_ is for car, death by car, in case you don’t get it, and please don’t quibble because the weapon was really a truck. Following that little lark, I removed the body cam from his carcass and tore the radio from his patrol car. After taking care of that tedious business, I drove my truck home and carefully washed away the bloody remnants of the deed from the undercarriage. There wasn’t even a scratch on the framework above the jacked-up tires. I stayed around to read about my crime, and soon realized the investigators had nothing to go on in their vindictive quest to find justice for their comrade in arms.

Finally, I hit the road once again after telling my boss and my country western friends that I had to attend to a sick mother in West Virginia. I actually did travel to that wide-open state, but just long enough to leave my beloved pick-up tucked away in an old abandoned coal mine in the Appalachian hills. I next considered visiting nearby Pennsylvania, another large state. I shied away from the notion of Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. At that point in my life, big cities still intimidated me. When I purchased a Pennsylvania map at a local coffee shop, I decided to head towards a southern county called Lancaster. It seemed bucolic enough and was steeped in Amish tradition. I thumbed my way east and eventually joined a lonely cross-country tractor-trailer hauler going my way. We discussed sports and politics as the ribbon of highway unfurled before us. The guy said he had a wife and three kids, and I asked him quite seriously, “Are you a good father?” He shrugged before answering. “I do my best for my brood. I’m not always around to see them play Little League or to watch my daughter’s ballet recitals, but they know that I love them with all my heart.” He seemed sincere and I chose to believe him. We parted company near the intersection of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Route 30, perhaps twenty miles outside of my destination.

Just as I expected, the exurbs of Lancaster were pastoral and quiet, with long stretches of corn fields and the occasional horse and buggies driven by men with beards dressed in simple black clothes and hats. Work was sparse, so I was compelled to dwell in the heart of a city unexpectedly alive with drugs and crime. My mechanical skills proved valuable once again, and I did find work. However, I surprised myself by suddenly becoming bored. Maybe it was time to make a life change. So, after just twelve months, I decided to go big or go home. I took a train to the largest city metropolis that was close by, luridly beckoning with neon lights and the promise of the unknown. That intrepid move seemed preordained because it wasn’t long after that when I met Neal Caffrey in New York City.


	2. The Birth of an Obsession

Manhattan was over-the-top in every way, including the price of admission. My little nest egg of savings would be depleted in no time if I rented even the smallest little walk-up on a grungy side street. So, for the time being, I took a room at the local YMCA while I sought a source of income. I finally landed a job with a taxicab company, working in their huge garage doing tune ups, oil changes, and tire rotations on their fleet of vehicles constantly prowling the downtown streets. It didn’t pay all that well, so I remained in a claustrophobic little cubicle and shared a bathroom with strangers. The stress began taking its toll, and it wasn’t long before I, too, was skulking along the streets during my days off looking for the opportunity to vent the dangerous combustion beginning to accumulate just below the surface. This time, I would have to be extraordinarily cautious because there were mechanical spying eyes on every corner and pairs of cops at every intersection. I had to perform meticulous recon while seeking out my next victim.

I checked out the various police station houses and even One Police Plaza, but it was an exercise in futility. In this vigilant mega-metropolis, cops all seemed to have partners and were never alone. Finally, Fate steered me to the imposing FBI building located uptown at 26 Federal Plaza, and I sat for hours watching agents in dark suits and ties come and go with the determined air of people quite smug in their mandated role of authority.

It was during my third visit to the little green space across the street from the tall skyscraper that I noticed a rather mismatched pair of agents exit the set of glass doors at what was probably the end of a workday for them. The older of the duo looked stern and uptight, while the smiling younger man beside him, dressed in a sharp suit and a quirky fedora, sashayed along with the cocky and self-assured strut of someone comfortable in his own skin. Maybe I should be the one to wipe that smile off his face.

Having chosen my next target, I never let him out of my sight. It was easy to follow him home to a formidably large residence on Riverside Drive. I did this twice more to make sure I was getting it right. The old mansion looked like a fortress, and that presented a problem. Serendipitously, I discovered an opportunity to accost the tall stranger when he emerged one evening dressed in sweats and carrying a gym bag. I trailed along at a discreet distance and found that he was headed to a nearby low-slung building with a sign indicating it held a gym and a lap pool. Unfortunately, on the way to that destination, there hadn’t been an available side street to provide cover for my intended mayhem. So, I simply shadowed him and waited outside.

This furtive surveillance became my sole focus for the next ten days. The handsome young agent visited that nearby establishment at least three times a week, and could be seen emerging after an hour or so with ruffled hair that was damp and wavy. It seemed that he was into swimming rather than sparring or exercising. Finally, it was time for me to ramp things up a bit, and I entered the doors one night a half hour after he disappeared inside the place. I signed in at the front desk as a guest, paid a small fee, and made my way to change into swim trunks in a locker room before meandering into the lap pool area.

It was a dimly-lit space, quiet and deserted at this hour except for me and my quarry who was gliding through the water with a slow easy pace. I watched the back and forth progression a few times before sliding into the water and propelling myself along with powerful strokes. My intended victim was sleekly toned and well built, but I had at least 25 pounds on his lean frame. He was swimming in the lane closest to the cement wall, so it would be quite easy to simply move up beside him, smash his head into the side of the pool to stun him, and then hold him under the water. It would fit in quite neatly with my modus operandi _—“D”_ is for drowning.

I chastise myself for lingering too long because just as I come abreast of him, I see him hoisting himself up out of the pool practically at my side. The water is sluicing down the taut muscles of his back, and I actually have a hand extended towards his shoulder to pull him back in when I see the bulky black apparatus firmly attached to his left ankle. I quickly drop my arm and he catches the abrupt gesture as he stoops to pick up his towel. His blue eyes seem to rake over my face when he catches me staring at his foot, and, after a few tense seconds, he merely shrugs and awards me a flat stare before heading to the locker room. He never knew how close he had come to death.

Now I had to rethink my strategy, and, for some unfathomable reason, I feel compelled to know more about this man. He obviously works for the FBI, just not in the expected capacity I had envisioned in my mind. He didn’t fit my criteria, and I wondered what nature of crime he had committed. Was it something as mundane as theft, or could he be a creature like me with a thirst for violence and death? In the deep reaches of my mind, I speculate about his motivation and if perhaps he was as much of a victim as I had once been. The not knowing is like a tantalizing longing, and I am drawn to the mystery surrounding this new enigma.

During the following days, I continued the charade, showing up at the pool when he did with my own duffel bag in hand. At first, he just acknowledged me with a slight nod, but, by the third encounter, he pinned me with his arresting blue eyes. “You just move in around here?” he wants to know.

“Actually, I have,” I admit. “I recently relocated from a small town in Pennsylvania. The name’s Rob Hanover,” I add as I put out my hand.

“Neal Caffrey,” he answers with a firm handshake.

There was an awkward few seconds of silence before he continues. “You can feel free to ask.”

“I beg your pardon?” I quickly respond to the blunt statement.

“You seemed fixated on my tracker the first time you came here, so don’t get all shy now,” he states flippantly.

“Maybe it’s none of my business,” I quickly reply.

Ignoring my words, he continues with an explanation. “I’m a felon on parole, and my work release has me tethered to the FBI, so now you don’t have to wonder anymore.”

I level my own serious stare in his direction as I slowly reply. “Maybe, at one time or another in our lives, we all find ourselves chained to something.”

Neal Caffrey, the perplexing puzzle, couldn’t be baited. He simply turns his back to me and dives deep into the pool.

The following week, Neal never made an appearance on his usual evenings, and I wondered if I had spooked him into changing his routine. So, I upped my game and was a guest at the facility every night. It felt so weird for me to worry about this stranger’s absence. I had always been a loner, never needing another person to feel complete. Perhaps it was merely a case of deluding myself, but, somehow, I perceived that this man and I were karmically connected, and a piece of what I craved was missing. Finally, at the beginning of the following week, Neal arrived and I felt relieved and almost whole.

“Been out of town?” I ask casually.

“No, just work stuff,” he answers shortly, and I wonder if the death of an FBI agent who had washed up on the banks of the Hudson River after fatally drowning had anything to do with that “work stuff.”

We swim our laps without any further interaction, but I intentionally climb from the pool when he does. “Look, Neal, I don’t know many people around here,” I remark shyly. “Maybe we could get a drink sometime and you can show me the ropes in my new town, sort of fill me in on the lay of the land.”

Neal looks at me speculatively, but my insecure and hopeful smile seems to win him over. “There’s a little neighborhood bar up the street. They don’t stand on ceremony, so it’s not a problem if we show up tonight in sweats.”

“Great!” I immediately enthuse.

Neal orders a Scotch on the rocks and I follow suit as we later perch on barstools in a nondescript little saloon without pretensions of being anything more than what it was.

“So, how does this work/release thing play out, if you don’t mind me asking?” I cautiously put out feelers.

“Shouldn’t your first question be something along the lines of what did I do to earn the jewelry on my ankle?” he replies cynically.

“Okay, I’m all ears if you want to tell me, but no pressure, I assure you,” I quickly respond.

I watch my new drinking buddy sigh. “I forged some bonds and got tripped up by a dogged Federal agent. I did almost four years in Sing Sing, took an unsanctioned very short hiatus from prison, and then had to broker a deal for a sort of limited freedom under this same guy’s authority. He’s my handler and he pulls the strings while I’m restricted to a two-mile radius in Manhattan.”

“That must really rankle,” I commiserate. “Having somebody constantly dictating what you can and can’t do in life sounds like a bitch. Not being able to walk away sounds even worse.”

“It’s not ideal,” Neal admits, “but my handler is really a pretty decent guy most of the time. I just have to stick it out for a few more years before I’m totally free.”

That was another piece of the puzzle, but I desired to know more intimate details. “You married?” I ask out of the blue, surprising even myself with the clumsy attempt to unearth more information about this very intriguing person who had definitely piqued my interest.

“No,” my new acquaintance answers shortly as he raises his eyebrows at the unexpected question of a more personal nature.

“Me neither,” I add before realizing how he might interpret my interest. “Look, Neal, I’m not coming on to you, if that’s what you think. I’m definitely not gay. I’m as straight as they come.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you were gay,” Neal says slowly. “It’s not my scene, but I’m far from judgmental about someone’s preferences.”

Suddenly, I find myself feeling vulnerable, and that hadn’t happened since I had been a child. Maybe I was just too far gone to know how to handle the basic social skills that normal people utilize as they maneuver through real life. It was easier to blame it on this man who had become my catnip, making me feel lightheaded and stupid. I had to get a grip.

“Well, this is getting awkward, so maybe you could tell me about your work or your handler,” I quickly try to patch the impending crack in the dam.

My embarrassed discomfort seemed to do the trick because, without missing a beat, Neal continues our stilted conversation with practiced ease. “Peter Burke is a straight arrow—by the book and all about truth, justice, and the American way. You always know where you stand with him.”

“But he has total control over you,” I interject. “Somehow that seems just wrong.”

“Perhaps annoying, but maybe not entirely a bad thing,” Neal reveals grudgingly. “I probably would run amok the first chance I got if he wasn’t holding onto my leash.”

“Would you go back to committing crimes if you managed to slip your chain?” I ask curiously.

“Probably,” he shrugs.

“What kind of crimes?” I ask trying to keep my tone light. I yearned to know just how alike we were. But, apparently, I seemed to have pushed the envelope a little too far because, suddenly, Neal is sliding off the stool and tossing cash onto the bar top. “Tomorrow’s a workday for me,” he says lightly. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

Somehow, I feel stupid and bereft and beyond stymied in my quest to know more about my obsession. I desperately wanted us to be soulmates, but I had been too eager and my clumsiness had pushed Neal away. In frustration, I was the one to skip the next couple of swim sessions because I had work to accomplish that had nothing to do with taxis getting oil changes. I desperately needed to alleviate the familiar pressure incessantly plaguing me. Thus, by the end of the week, another Federal agent met an untimely end. A member from the Organized Crime Division perished in an explosion after the ignition of his car triggered a payload under the driver’s seat. That took care of the letter _“E.”_

Now I was on a frenzied roll and determined to bring the next homicide a little closer to home. Maybe that was the way to get Neal’s attention. My chosen victim was actually a member of the White Collar team—Neal’s little cadre of jailors. A junior agent had died after being fenestrated—now there’s a big _“F”_ word for you. To be precise, fenestration means the act of creating a new opening into the human body. In this case, it was a screwdriver penetrating the victim’s ear and piercing his brain.

Two weeks later, I was unnaturally overjoyed to see Neal at the pool. “I’ve missed seeing you,” I confess. “Maybe we can catch up later with another nightcap.”

“Sure,” he replies offhandedly, but I thought I detected subtle caution in the look he threw my way. I needed to tread lightly to keep him from bolting out of my life again.

Once we were situated at our usual watering hole, surprisingly, Neal was the one seeking information. “So, tell me about yourself, Rob,” he remarks casually.

I felt overjoyed that he was interested in me. “Well, as I told you, I’m not married either. I was born and raised in a small Midwestern town that I couldn’t wait to leave in the dust. I guess I’m like the proverbial rolling stone gathering no moss. I’ve been traveling around for the last decade or so just trying to find out where I fit in.”

“Was that little town too boring for you?” Neal asks curiously.

“Too provincial, too constricting, too everything,” I answer bitterly. “I needed to escape because my father was the local sheriff, and he ruled everything and everybody with an iron hand. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I did something about his control over me. I split and never looked back.”

“My father was a cop, too,” Neal answers softly. “But now he’s gone from my life, as well.”

“What would you do if he suddenly showed up again?” I ask just as quietly.

“He won’t,” Neal provides a definitive reply.

I thought that was an interesting response, and I felt my heart do a little somersault in my chest. Was this mercurial but reticent man actually guilty of patricide, just as I was? I felt strangely elated, like Neal and I were two sides of the same coin. “So, even though your father is out of the picture, you still have another person using his authority to make you dance to his tune,” I logically argue to see his response.

“That’s one way of looking at it,” my obsession answers slowly as he stares deep into my eyes. Was that an unspoken appeal to me to help him out of an untenable situation? It was definitely food for thought.

“So, how are things at the FBI?” I ask casually. “I work in a garage, so let me live vicariously though you and your dangerous occupation.”

Neal shrugs. “Normally, my job is pretty mundane, but, at the moment, the FBI profilers think they have a serial killer on their hands wreaking havoc. Somebody’s killed three of our own so far, so it’s a rabid intense investigation unfurling in Federal Plaza right now.”

I feel a twitch in my jaw as those muscles tighten. “Neal, do you even realize that you just said that somebody killed three of _‘our own’_ as if you are one of them? There’s a messed up psychological condition that affects victims who lose their true identities because they’ve been beaten down emotionally by their captors. You are _not_ one of the enemy, my friend. Even though you can’t physically be free, at least let your mind stay focused on who you really are.”

Neal favors me with a scowl. “Rob, I don’t think I’m that far gone that I have Stockholm Syndrome. Just don’t go there, okay.”

I take a deep breath and quickly backpedal away from the prickly subject. My next statement was said more nonchalantly, although I really did want to hear Neal’s opinion. “Do you think they’ll be able to catch the murderer before he kills again?”

“Perhaps,” he says thoughtfully as he again stares at me with an unflinching gaze. “Maybe it’s all about getting into his mind in order to stop him.”

Suddenly, I find myself going rigid. Was this beautiful but mortal man capable of morphing into a dangerous all-seeing oracle? Could he somehow be sensing my wickedness as he psychically breached the deep recesses of my mind? Like a phantom specter, the Alphabet song started playing, nonstop, in my head. Now I was the one to abruptly flee the scene. “I just remembered there’s somewhere I need to be,” I stutter as I hastily make my way to the door and the crisp, cooling air of the dark night.


	3. The Dream Shatters

Staying away from Neal was like withdrawing from an addiction to a powerful drug. I knew I was hopelessly infatuated just as I instinctively knew I should back the hell away and revert to self-preservation. Wanting what I shouldn’t have would be dangerous for me, but I was far beyond reason and sanity at this point. I tried to understand my fatal attraction that should have been anathema to me. This wasn’t some passing man-crush. Oh no, it was something much deeper. What was going on in my head to make me suddenly want the forbidden? I was a decent-looking male specimen and had dated my fair share of women over the years, but they were usually one night stands to relieve the normal pent up sexual tensions of my gender. I never entertained the thought of fucking a man. But, when I thought about Neal, the scenario wasn’t one of brutally breaching his body with frenzied thrusts. In my mind’s eye, it was more like melding our two bodies and souls into one entity. There would be no childish song playing in my head if that happened, and I was drawn to the possibility like a moth to a flame. Maybe I had just been fooling myself by sublimating what was really latent homosexuality all these years. Perhaps I was becoming my father after all, and I didn’t know if I should feel resigned or fulfilled on a totally different level.

This confusing dichotomy only ratcheted up my tension, and I knew I had to release it once again or mentally implode. I decided to be proactive and attack the problem at its root cause. Special Agent Peter Burke was the obvious obstacle standing in the way of my desire to have what I craved. He held the keys to the kingdom, and he needed to be gone in the most permanent of ways so that Neal could be free to soar, hopefully with me right by his side. I devoted all my efforts to finding out every pertinent detail in the older man’s life, and I spent my nights constructing mental scenarios of ways to kill him. I had reached the letter _“G”_ in my alphabet soup, so I considered a fatal gunshot to the head. However, I entertained some reluctance about that idea. It would be over too swiftly, and I wanted Neal’s jailor to suffer. Besides, getting my hands on an illegal gun on the seedy streets of New York was too much of a risk. I needed a simpler remedy. I finally settled on a weapon known as a garrote.

It was easy enough to appropriate some strong thin wire from the garage where I worked. I also purchased a kid’s jump rope from a local toy store and drilled holes in the thick wooden handles so that I could thread the wire through them and twist it securely into place. The finished product became the perfect killing implement, and I carried it in my pocket as the days of my dedicated surveillance of this Burke character unfolded. I usually sat at the same bench in the tiny pocket oasis of grass and anemic-looking trees situated across from the Federal Building. One Wednesday, I was surprised to see Neal already sitting in my spot sipping from a paper coffee cup when I arrived. I hadn’t frequented the lap pool in days, afraid that I might overplay my hand and scare him away. But I couldn’t help but be overjoyed at the opportunity to be with him again.

“Hey,” I say trying not to display my heart on my sleeve.

“Hey,” he responds less enthusiastically.

“Something wrong?” I ask carefully. “You look a little down.”

Neal shrugs indifferently. “Let’s just say I’m having a bad day and leave it at that.”

“You want to talk about it?” I ask gently. “I can be a very good listener.”

Another shrug was Neal’s initial response before he finally opens up a little bit. “It’s just my handler,” he says through a clenched jaw. “He’s being somewhat of a dick.”

“How so?” I wheedle an answer.

“It’s about the cop killer,” the young man begins as he finally looks me in the eye. “The Feds are stymied because they have no leads, and for Peter and me, it’s still the same old story. I have to produce for him in order to validate my worth. Since I can’t seem to help him find this madman on a killing spree, he’s threatening to end our deal and ship me back to prison.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” I immediately object.

“Fair has nothing to do with anything in a Fed’s world,” Neal says with a snort. “They can do whatever they want whether it’s justified or not. I’m just a pawn to Peter Burke that he can move around a chessboard. Right now, I’m really not liking him very much.”

“Can’t you ask to be reassigned to someone else?” I say hopefully.

Neal looks at me like I’m crazy. “Get real, Pal, that’s not how this whole work/release thing works. I’m always going to be at the mercy of the Man.”

“When is this all supposed to happen?” I inquire anxiously.

“The day after tomorrow—Friday. By that afternoon, I’ll be on a prison bus heading back upstate to Ossining in an orange jumpsuit,” is the glum answer.

It was at that point that I knew I had to move up my timetable. “Well, maybe something will occur to change your circumstances before that happens,” I say vaguely.

“Peter’s not going to change his mind,” Neal says firmly as he stands up and walks toward the street leaving me hanging.

Neal’s unexpected news galvanized me into action and I knew I had to act swiftly. Tomorrow was Thursday, and I assured myself that it would be the last Thursday that Peter Burke would ever enjoy because his life was going to end before the stroke of midnight. But I was coldly realistic regarding my plan. Burke was a big guy, so maybe attempting to take him down with a wire necklace would end up in a struggle that I wouldn’t win. I began reconsidering using a gun, maybe just to incapacitate him until I could finish the job with the garrote. That afternoon, I cautiously approached one of my co-workers at the garage. He was a huge intimidating dude with a bald head and a torso of connected tattoos.

“I’ve been thinking that maybe I need a firearm for protection in this dangerous city,” I whisper in his ear. “Can you hook a fella up?”

“I can’t help you out personally,” he replies in the same low whisper. “But I may know somebody who can.”

He furnished a name and an address down in the Barrio, and later that same evening I found myself with an illegal and untraceable weapon nestled in my pocket. Step two in my plan was stealing a car off the street and traveling over the Brooklyn Bridge to a staid little townhouse on a quiet avenue. I watched and waited until just before midnight when every light in the house had winked out. It was then that I made my move. I had taught myself to be proficient with lock picks, and I hoped to finish my business and be on my way before any burglar alarm managed to summon the cavalry. My one regret was that Neal couldn’t be by my side to watch his tormentor die.

I had just slowly edged my way through a rear kitchen and had a foot on the first stair in a flight that reached upwards to the second floor. My new gun was nestled in my fist, the garrote was in my pocket, and the Alphabet song was playing in my mind. Suddenly my furtive progress was frozen midstride when lights suddenly blazed on and what appeared to be an army of black-clad ninjas were aiming their own weapons at me. The laser dots seemed to feel like tiny knives piercing my body, and, somehow, I knew there had to be one zeroed in on my forehead as well.

 _“Drop the weapon and get down! Get down on the floor!”_ became the frenzied chorus from these aggressive defenders of the realm. I did as I was told, and from the corner of my eye I spotted the objective of my mission stride into the room. Unbelievably, Neal was just behind Peter Burke’s shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~

“How did you know?” I ask curiously as Neal sits across from me in the FBI interrogation room.

“Because I don’t believe in coincidences,” the young man answers softly. I would have thought that Neal would be gloating at having tripped me up. Instead, his expression is somber and maybe almost a bit sad.

“You mean like me suddenly showing up at the same place where you swim?” I really want to know how he had figured me out.

“That was certainly part of the progression,” Neal explains. “I’m a pretty observant guy, and in my former line of work being perceptive was a definite asset. I’m always aware of what goes on around me because you never know if you’re in danger. I noticed you sitting on that bench across from the Federal Building on many separate occasions before you suddenly began appearing at my gym. I needed to know your agenda and what kind of threat you represented. During my years as a criminal, I made some enemies who may have decided to even an old score.”

“You were never in any danger from me, Neal,” I whisper softly, “at least not when I figured out that you were on the other side of the law and order spectrum. You probably won’t believe me, but I really liked being around you. We seemed to share a rare bond.”

Neal cocks his head. “Do you mean like a less than ideal father?”

“That and other things,” I say vaguely.

“I’m no shrink, but maybe that’s where this situation started to go off the rails for you,” Neal says thoughtfully. “You actually trusted me enough to provide your real name, so after that it was easy for the FBI to trace you through your social security number, school records, and work history. What emerged was a saga of a deadly odyssey across the country as someone, who probably killed his own father, continued to kill him over and over again using others as surrogates. The Feds are re-examining that initial fire in a little Iowa town, and now that they have your fingerprints, they are going over the sporadic killings of other police officers occurring through the next decade in different states—places where you actually lived for a time. When it’s all said and done, you may be looking at the death penalty for the murder of at least one police officer that they can prove.”

“They won’t find a shred of evidence that I was involved in anything like that,” I protest.

“Don’t be too sure,” Neal advises. “I was cocky once and it got me into a world of hurt.”

I frown at the person who was once the object of my affection. “Coincidences aside, Neal, what made you ever think that I could be capable of something as horrendously evil as committing serial murders? I mean, we talked, face to face, and I never once saw suspicion or fear in your eyes. Do you consider yourself to be some kind of weird psychic?”

“I’m a con artist, Rob, not a fortune teller with a crystal ball,” Neal sets the record straight. “Reading people is what I do, and what I felt emanating from you was damn scary. It was a cleverly camouflaged maliciousness with wicked intent, so I hid behind my own façade to see how it would all play out.”

“You know, Neal, I really did care for you,” I say earnestly. “You were very special to me, and I wanted to make sure you’d be free. What I tried to do was all for you. You get that, right?”

“I believe your thinking became a bit skewed, Rob,” Neal utters those damning words. “You were seeing things that just weren’t there. I simply fed your fantasy and played you until you tripped yourself up.” That callous acknowledgment slips off his tongue like acid and burns me deeply. I have to strike back and wound him just as he hurt me.

“So, okay, now I see the light,” I retaliate coldly. “You were the deceitful puppet master pulling the strings in our drama. But tell me honestly, Neal, what did you really see when you looked into my eyes? Did you see me or yourself reflected back? I think we’re very much alike and tarred by the same brush. You just do a better job of hiding your true self behind a mask. You and I understand each other because it’s in our nature to savagely betray others in the worst way possible to get what we want, cost be damned. We’re driven to do it because that’s who we are and we can’t change that dangerous fluke entrenched in our primal DNA. The shrinks would say we’re sociopaths, incapable of deep emotions or sustaining close personal attachments. We’re unable to feel affection or love for another soul. So, tell me, Neal—are you even capable of something as deeply profound as love?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” the con man shoots back.

“And my answer would be a resounding yes,” I say with conviction. “I did love you and that was my fatal flaw!”

Neal is almost out the door before I begin crooning softly. _“A, B, C, D, E, F, G.”_ He turns back to face me and I murmur the word _“Guile.”_

My traitorous Adonis looks confused, so I spell it out for him. _“G”_ is for guile, another word for sly deviousness. I was up to that letter in my special alphabet before you stole my thunder. You managed to make me _your_ victim with your cunning guile.”

Neal shakes his head slowly. “No, Rob, the word of the day is _guilt_ , and that’s what is going to eventually take your life.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“You doing okay, Buddy?” Peter Burke asks after the interview ends and he notices Neal’s almost haunted look.

“I’m fine, Peter,” Neal replies instinctively.

“You know, he was just trying to get into your head, so don’t take what Hanover said seriously,” Peter warns.

“Sure, I get it. He wanted to crawl into my grey matter just like I had crawled into his,” Neal acknowledges. “But, at the end of the day, only the two of us know the real truth about ourselves and each other.”

“I _do_ know what you’re all about, Neal,” Peter says emphatically. “I certainly studied you long enough over the years to gain that insight. At heart, you’re a kind and decent person, so never doubt that about yourself. Don’t let a disturbed ghoul shake your faith in your own goodness. You are not Hanover’s kindred spirit!”

Neal cocks his head thoughtfully and begins to move away. “If you say so, Peter,” he flings the disturbing words over his shoulder like a challenge leaving a worried friend to stare at his departing back.


End file.
